The Vanishing Year(63)

The idea that Evelyn could know about another baby and reject her? Impossible.

“She had no idea there were two babies. She wouldn’t have taken you. She couldn’t afford both of you, there was no way. If she would have known, she would have backed out.” She runs her palm along her forehead, as though massaging a headache. “It sounds awful now, I know. At the time, it was just . . . survival. The whole thing was a mess, but I was in too bad a place to care. Mother found someone else interested in adoption and she took your sister. It was all done privately, through an agency.” She finally sits on the edge of the chair, crossing her legs, all knobby knees and pencil calves. “Mother kept tabs on both of you for a long time. Then Joan came to see me.”

The implication is obvious: Caroline did not keep tabs on us.

“So everyone knew I had a sister but Evelyn and me? She knows. You knew. We’re the only ones who didn’t know?” I set my water down on the glass-top end table with force.

“Well, you can’t understand unless you’re in the situation. Then later, I just think Joan wanted to find you in her own time. Or maybe she tried and couldn’t?”

Yes, that made sense. Hilary Lawlor became Zoe Swanson, then Whittaker. An amateur sleuth might lose that link.

“But you didn’t try? To help her, I mean?”

“She didn’t ask. I gave her what I knew, which wasn’t much.” She presses the pad of her thumb along the arm of the chair, avoiding my gaze.

I say nothing.

“Zoe, there’s something you should know.” She reaches around me, parting the window curtain and for a second I can smell her shampoo, her shower soap. She’s so close I could lean over and kiss her cheek. “I shouldn’t tell you this but someone called me.” Her voice is low. “I think it was a man, it was hard to tell. But someone is watching me, or maybe you.” She touched me then, her hand cold on my shoulder. “He threatened me. He said to leave you alone.”

“Who was it? Who called you?” I’m so confused.

She holds her hands out, palms up, and shakes her head. I don’t know. “I have a child. He’s six. I’m forty-six. He wasn’t supposed to be able to be born. I tried for years, to no avail, and honestly believed I was being punished for what I did. To you. To your sister. For my abandonment, my selfishness.”

I become fixated on her words: I have a child. My mind snaps back at her, sarcastically. No, you have three children. But then again, I don’t think of her as my mother, so why would she think of me as her child? Because, because, shouldn’t you always remember your children? I never had the luxury of forgetting a woman I’ve never met, a vague figure of a mother, mostly invented or derived from old, yellowed Polaroids of Evelyn’s old friends that I found in her closet. I flipped through them like I was shuffling cards, greedily pawing, until the women’s faces were smudged with tiny fingerprints. I always wondered if one of them was my real mother. I could never bring myself to ask.

Caroline had easily forgotten us. The evidence is right here: I have a child.

I realize then, her darting eyes, her fidgeting, her reluctance to talk to me. She was afraid. But also maybe, just maybe, relieved. The decision was made for her, who can blame her now?

I stand up. “But you did. You did talk to me. Why?” I swallow. Out of nowhere, I want to cry, I feel the bite in the back of my throat.

“I owe you. I owe . . . Evelyn, I guess? Joan? I’m sorry, whether you believe that or not.” She rocks back on her heels.

“I have to go.” I think of Cash in the car. The faceless, nameless man who threatened Caroline. Later, the way she’d surely be watching out her curtains all night. I hitch my purse high on my shoulder and it swings back, knocking over the half-full water glass. Water edges down the sides of the table, and on the floor, creeping toward the rich, leathery sofa. I suppress the urge to apologize. Caroline’s eyes dart from me, to the puddle, and back, and I know she is struggling over which is a larger disaster.

She stands woodenly in the living room, eyes closed. “Zoe,” she says softly.

I stand there expectantly, stupidly still hoping for something, a hug, an apology, a gesture of kindness. Friendship.

“Don’t ever come back.”

? ? ?

I climb into the passenger side and slam the door. Cash had reclined his seat and is startled awake. He shakes the sleep from his eyes.

“Already? What happened?” He adjusts the backrest upright.

“She was threatened.” I blurt. He cocks his head, confused. I take the card with Joan’s information and flash it in front of his face. “Also, I have a sister.”

If he’s shocked, it doesn’t register on his face. He just nods.

“Did you know?” I demand.

He shakes his head. “No, Zoe. I swear. I had no idea.” He turns the key in the ignition and backs slowly out of the driveway. He keeps his eyes forward, trained on the road. “What happened with Caroline?”

“She’s a bitch.” I say it forcefully, partly because I’m tugging on the seat belt and it finally breaks loose, but the curse slips out easily and it feels good. Even as I say it, I know it’s not completely true. It occurs to me then—even without the threatening phone call, would the outcome have been any different? She didn’t stay in touch with Joan. “She has a new life. I don’t fit in—you were right. Is that what you want to hear?” I huff and sit back, crossing my ankles.